US2423132A - Wheel trenching machine - Google Patents

Description

July 1947. G. A. VAUGHN WHEEL TRENCHING MACHINE s Sheets- Sheet 1 Filed July 23, 1943 Ba s y 1947. G. A. VAU GHN 2,423,132

' WHEEL: TRENCHING MACHINE Filed July 2:5, 1945 s Sheets-Sheet 2 July 1, 1947. G. A. VAUGHN WHEEL TRENCHING MACHINE Filed July 25, 1943 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Patented July 1, 1947 UNITED- STATES PATENT OFFICE WHEEL TnENoHINe MACHINE George A. Vaughn, Newton, Iowa, assignor to The Parsons Company, Newton, Iowa, a corporation Application July '23, 1943, Serial No. $35,874 2 Claims (01. 37---9"7) '1 Th s nve tio ncrtains to the. t of w vating machines and particularly to those types 1 s h ach nes d signed r the pu p se of excavating trenches for pipe line laying or other PU PO C 'Ihe invention involves improvements in. trenchir g machines of the class utilizing in conjunction with a' supporting traction body an excavating Wheel trenching unit.

In wheel trenching machines it is necessary to provide means for lowerin the excavating wheel unit to cause the same to engage with the earth to be excavated as the machine progresses forwardly. The wheel unit must of course be elevated into an inactive or non-operating position, moreover, when the machine is being moved from place to place while the excavating operation is not being performed.

The improvements in this invention reside primarily in providing novel supporting meansfor the wheel unit for carrying the same upon the portable traction body of the machine and for driving the wheel rotatively during its excavat ing operation. Necessarily, means of the last mentioned type must involve driving connections between a prime mover on the traction body and the excavating wheel itself; By reason of the employment of such driving means, complicated connections involving the supporting means between the traction body and the wheel have heretoiore been used and a primary object of the invention has been to simplify this portion of the machine.

To the above end of the special objective of the invention 1 have designed driving means for the e cava ing Wheel of my proposed machine in which the relation of the driving parts is main tained without requirement of change or adjustment of the parts themselves incident to the raising and lowering of the driving wheel, raising when desired to elevate the wheel for traveling purposes and lowering when the Wheel is fed to the ground to be excavated and held at a lowered adjustment for making the trench desired oi" a certain depth.

More specifically speaking, in the carrying out of my invention I have provided a driving unit intermediate the prime mover or motor of the traction body of the machine and the excavfating wheel, which driving unit includes supporting arms that are pivotally carried upon the traction base, extend to, and are ldrivably connected to the excavating wheel, which arm contain or carry relatively fixed driving parts for transmitt ps the iving a ti n of h r m mo er to 20 the excavating wheel. .The said supportin and driving arms are so mounted and arranged relatively' to the prime mover and the excavating wheel that they'shift pivotally incident to the raising and lowering of the said wheel for the purposes previously mentioned and carry with them the driving parts associated with th driving unit withoutany variation in the relative disposition or operating positions of the driving parts cf he un Another feature of the invention lies in the novel provision made incident to the employment of an overload clutch device operating in conjunction with diiferential drive "gearing for the excavating wheel, for permittingslippage of the driving gear members in the event of stalling of the excavating Wheel when it strikes an obstruction, thereby to avoid possibility of breakage of the excavating buckets or other parts of the excavating unit itself.

A pref rred em od m nt f e n iqn i lustrated in the accompanying drawings in h h? Figure 1 is a side elevation of a wheel trenching machine embodying my invention, dottedlines showing certain of the parts of the supporting frame of the excavating wheel as when elevated to carry the wheel to its inactive or nomexcavat- 'n posi ion- 1 Figure 2 is a horizontal sectional View taken a cut on he ine 27 f Figure 1, r n in ou clearly the construction of the driving unit and connections thereof to the excavating Wheel and to the prime mover, sprocket chains being broken away to show coacting gears clearly.

Figure 3 is a side view of one of the excavating arm Figure 4 is a plan view of one of said arms as sho n F r 31 Figure 5 is a vertical sectional view through one of the dri ing arms, aken a r g an les to the views of Figures 3 and 4.

Figure .6 is a side view of the slip clutch unit.

Figure 7 is a side view of the differential drive shaft arm for the slip or safety clutch.

Figure 8 is an enlarged view of details or the conveyor driving gearing."

Describing the invention in detail and referring to Figure 1 of the drawings, A enerals designates the traction or supporting body of the machine which may involve a cab or housing structure conventional to the art, said supporting body being'carried upon a suitable traction base frame B that is equipped with the cus cma y crawlers or endless traction belts C by which the travel movement of the machine is effected.

Any suitable drive gearing may be provided to operate the traction belts C from the engine or motor I on or in the body structure A. The body structure A includes a suitable supporting framework including the A-frame members 2 at one end and other frame members 3, ii, and 5, all of which may be conventional and to the specific construction of which I do not wish to be limited.

The excavating unit of the machine comprises largely a supporting frame made up of the curved angle bars 6, the straight horizontal channels I, vertical channels 8, and vertical angle bars 9 connected at their lower ends by horizontal angle bars If The excavator supporting frame carries at different portions thereof the supporting and guiding wheels II which are disposed in pairs, the wheels of each pair spaced apart and engaging the circular frame members I2 that comprise the sides of the excavator wheel generally designated at D. The side circular frame members l2 are connected by the transverse excavating buckets I3 that are located at intervals around the periphery of the Wheel and removably attached to the members I2 as desired. The buckets I 3 are of conventional construction equipped with digging teeth It preferably.

Carried by a cross shaft I5 near the front portions of the curved bars 5 of the excavating wheel supporting frame are spaced sheaves I6, the shaft I5 being supported in suitable brackets I? attached to the said frame members 6. Around the sheaves ll operate spaced cable hoisting and lowering parts designated I8, one end of each of the cable parts I 8 leading to a drum I 9 supported on certain frame parts of the machine body A by means of a shaft 20. Said shaft 28 therefore carries two drums, one adjacent to each end thereof. In similar manner there are utilized hoisting cables 2| passing around sheaves 22 on a shaft 23 supported on brackets 24 connected with the frame members 6 near the rear portion thereof, which are adjacent to the body frame of the machine.

The cables 2I, two of which are employed, lead to a pair of drums 25 on a shaft 25 located adjacent to the shaft 20. The drum shafts 20 and 26 may be driven by any suitable driving connections from the engine or motor I, and under the control of suitable manual means the cables I8 and 2| may be paid out from the drums I 9 and 25 respectivtely or wound upon said drums to lower and raise, respectively, the excavating Wheel unit. The cables I8 and 2I pass over suitable sheaves or guide pulleys 21 mounted on a shaft 28 carried by the upper end of the A- frame 2.

The supporting frame for the excavating wheel D may be equipped also with vertical standards 29 supported directly by the channels I, braced at their upper ends by the tie rods 30, said standards 29 carrying at their lower ends a crumber 3| for cutting and leveling to proper contour the base of the trench excavated by the excavating wheel. The crumber 3| is disposed at the rearmost portion of said Wheel and cleans up the bottom of the ditch or trench excavated, in the well known manner.

It is apparent from the foregoing that the excavating unit of the machine may be elevated and lowered by the instrumentalities above described, primarily the cables I8 and 2| and their operating drums I9 and 25 respectively.

Describing now the driving unit between the motor I and the excavating wheel, reference is made to Figures 1 and 2 in which it will be seen that said unit comprises largely two spaced supporting arms 32. The arms 32 are mounted by suitable bearing portions 33 surrounding bearing portions of a gear casing 34 carrying the differential shafts 35 and 3B. The gear casing 34 is mounted rigidly in supported relation to the engine I in the body of the machine, and the shafts 35 and 36 constitute axis members carrying said arms 32. The shafts 35 and 36 are connected by a conventional differential gear unit generally designated as at E in Figure 2.

The motor or engine I may be a conventional gas, Diesel, or other engine, as seen in Figure 1, and the drive from said engine to the differential gear unit E will be controlled by the hand operated lever 31 of conventional change speed gearing. As seen in Figure 2, a driven shaft 38, variably driven under the control of the change speed gearing previously mentioned, is bevel-geared as at 39 to a countershaft 40, which shaft is spurgeared at; ll to another countershaft 62, the latter in turn bein spur-geared at 3 to a clutch shaft 34 carrying the shiftable clutch member 25 operable by the lever 46, seen in Figure 1, through the provision of yoke means engaging the groove of the clutch member 45.

The clutch member 55 is splined to the shaft 12a and cooperates with the clutch member ll of a sprocket gear 48 on the same shaft Ml. The sprocket gear 151 is connected by a sprocket chain 59 with a drive sprocket 53 forming a part of the differential gear unit E, and the chain 48 carries the drive from the engine to said unit, thereby to operate the differential gear shafts 35 and 35 that support the arms 32. The shafts 35 and 35 are equipped with sprockets 5| and 52, respectively, and the sprockets are connected by sprocket or drive chains 53 to corresponding sprockets 5 3 on the excavator wheel operating shafts 55. The shafts 55 constitute a connection between the arms 32,

Each of the sprocket gears 54 i carried by a hub 55 and each hub 56 in turn carries a wheel driving gear 51 the teeth of which en age internal teeth 58 on the circular frame or ring members I2 of the excavating wheel unit. The hubs 55 are supported in bearings 9a on the digger frame 9. Therefore, upon driving rotation of the sprockets 54 their driving movement is transmitted at greatly reduced speed to the member l2, in view of the large gear ratio of the gear rings or frame members I2 to the small gear member 51'. Rotation of the excavating wheel D is thus effected by the driving means described extending from the engine to the excavating Wheel proper, and in its rotation the wheel unit is guided by the supporting and guiding wheels I I previously referred to.

The driving sprocket 52 on the differential gear shaft 36 has a hub formed with a drum 59 cooperable with a slip or safety clutch member 68 so that should the excavating bucket or buckets of the Wheel unit D strike an obstruction and stall the Wheel, the wheel may remain stationary whilst the driving parts of the differential gearing continue to operate without liability of breakage of the drive connections or the parts of the excavating wheel unit.

From the foregoing description it will be apparent that by reason of the mode of supporting or suspending the arms 32 in pivotal relation to the inner axis supporting means 36 and in pivotal relation to the outer axis means 911, the driving unit comprising these arms and associated gearing described may be raised and lowered incident to pivotal movement about the axis at the member 34 without varying the length of the driving sprocket connections 53 and as permitted by the shifting of the gear parts to which said chains are connected incident to the raising and lowering movement of the excavating wheel unit D by means of the cables 59 and 21. The driving unit as peculiarly designed according to this invention, therefore, eliminates the necessity of providing special tension devices for association with the drive chains 53 or the need for constructing the drive units of articulating parts to compensate for the variation in the position of the wheel unit D when elevated and lowered. In this manner the whole construction of the driving and sup porting means for the excavating wheel is simplified, the cost of manufacture of the machine is reduced, and the operation of the driving means for the wheel unit rendered highly efficient under actual conditions of use.

Up and down swinging of the arm unit 32-32, including associated gearing, may be performed at will without disturbing the normal driving relation of these parts.

As seen in Figure 2 to 5, the arms 32 are made preferably of channel metal members, and if desired a cover plate 32a may be detachably applied to each arm opposite to and enclosing the adjacent sprocket 54.

The slip or safety clutch unit includes the clutch member or band 60 before mentioned, same surrounding the drum 59 and shown best in Figure 6. A drive shaft arm 60a is keyed to the differential shaft 36 and equipped with lugs 69b to engage opposite abutment lugs 690 on the respective ends of the clutch band 60 whereby to control the drive from the differential unit to the shafts 36 and 35, This drive and slip clutch means works peculiarly. Assuming that the excavating machine is operating with one half the power delivered to each side or ring 12 of the excavating wheel, if an obstruction is encountered which stops the wheel from rotating, the clutch 59 slips. The clutch 66, being on only one side of the differential, rotates at twice the speed with the same torque as before. The slip clutch operates equally eflectively in either direction.

The differential gear unit E operates similarly to that of an automobile except that instead of using a bevel gear mounted on the gear housing E, the housing is driven by the sprocket 59 secured to one end of the housing and rotating the latter to cause it to drive through the bevel pinions of the unit.

The longer of the drive shaft parts 55 drives both one side of the wheel D and suitable bevel gears for operating the conveyor 65 that extends transversely through the wheel D, and, as usual, receives and carries off the material dropping thereon from buckets l3, said material dislodged by the cleaners 66. The shorter of th shafts 55 drives the other side of the wheel D through 6 a sleeve and gear fastened to the inner end of the shaft.

The conveyor driving bevel gears are denoted 66 in Figures 2 and the enlarged Figure 8 showing these details more fully. A clutch 61 oppositely shiftable to engage gears 66 carrie the reversible drive from the shaft part 55 to the conveyor driving shaft 68, not fully shown.

Having thus described my invention, What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. In a trench excavating machine, in combination, a portable body, traction supporting means therefor, a motor carried by the body, an excavating wheel unit adjacent the body including an excavating wheel, a supporting frame on which said wheel unit is rotatively mounted, means on the portable body connected to the said frame for raising and lowering the same and the wheel unit thereon, and driving means separate from the raising and lowering means and operated from the motor connected to the excavating wheel for operating the latter, said driving means including a differential gear unit comprising differential gear connected shafts, and separate driving connections from the gear shafts to opposite sides of the excavating wheel, said driving means including arms pivotally connected to the body and pivotally connected at their outer ends to the wheel supporting frame and arranged to support parts of the driving connections, said separate driving connections including a two part shaft member that connects the arms to the wheel supporting frame, one part of the shaft member connected directly to one of the differential gear connected shafts, and the other part I REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 2,084,887 Bennett June 22, 1937 1,553,833 Penote Sept. 15, 1925 1,714,306 George May 21, 1929 720,841 Pawel Feb. 17, 1903 1,005,544 Henderson Oct. 10, 1911 1,541,198 'Ieter June 9, 1925 1,911,615 George May 30, 1933 584,323 Bunnell June 15, 1897

Images